All seems to be well. It’s just not showing up properly yet because that doesn’t happen until items are actually shipped, or even a bit later. So, Amazon orders should work fine it you click through the box on the right sidebar.
Hold off on Amazon for the moment
It’s not working properly yet. I’m going to talk to them later today and try to see what the problem with the click-through is, and then I’ll get back to you.
Vietnam: they lost the war, but won the battle
Who are “they?” The Left.
What war? Vietnam.
What battle? The one that determines who gets to write history.
It’s said that history is written by the winners, and that’s true. But Vietnam just may have been the first war in which those who opposed the conflict “won” in the forum of public opinion by convincing their fellow citizens and government to abandon the war itself, and then got to write most of its chronicles.
Case in point: this piece in the NY Times Magazine, which states the following foregone conclusion [emphasis mine]:
In the decades after Vietnam, despite having been proved right about the war itself, a generation of Democrats who opposed the war nonetheless struggled mightily to find a credible response to armed conflict, to reconcile the breach that separated the antiwar left from the broader swath of Americans who disdained reflexive pacifism.
Proved right? Hardly. But the Left and even most Democrats consider it axiomatic that those who opposed the war have been “proved” right. I’ve spent many hours and many words discussing the proof that exists for the opposite side: that our abandonment of Vietnam in the mid-70s was an unnecessary tragedy and a shame (see the category “Vietnam” on the right sidebar). And I’m hardly the only one.
But word doesn’t seem to have penetrated a huge swath of liberals and the Left that there still might even be another side—much less that it might have some validity, and that it offers arguments that require responses.
I’ve encountered this “everybody knows” attitude about Vietnam many times before, including on the occasion of John Updike’s death. Updike, a liberal Democrat, had angered most of his fellow literati during the 60s by offering a principled and compelling argument that the war may have been a well-intentioned effort by the US to allow the South Vietnamese to maintain their freedom from tyrannical Northern Communists. Updike got much condemnation and little praise for his pains, even after his death, at which time I wrote the following:
Last night…as I was watching a Charlie Rose tribute to John Updike that featured a panel composed of Updike’s editor Judith Jones, former New Yorker editor David Remnick, and New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, the latter casually mentioned, amidst the praise and reminiscence, that “of course, Updike was on the wrong side about the Vietnam War.”
Of course. Everybody who’s anybody knows that.
[NOTE: See this for Updike’s position on the war, in his own inimitable words.]
MacHate
I am writing this on my Mac, because my other computer is ill.
I got the Mac about a year and a half ago. There were a bunch of reasons, including the fact that I was struggling with some technical issues relating to the podcast and the Mac finally solved them. Little did I know that a few months later PJ would be phasing out podcasts, and I’d find myself left holding a new Mac.
But that didn’t seem so terrible. After all, everybody loves Macs! Macs are sexy, Macs are sleek, Macs are user-friendly, Macs are for the cognoscenti. I would love my Mac, too.
And I tried to, I really tried. I don’t anyone’s ever worked harder on a relationship than I did with my Mac.
But it just wasn’t working out. I told my Mac it wasn’t my Mac, it was me.
But I’m not so sure. I think maybe it was my Mac. Or at the very least, the interface of my Mac and me.
The problems are manifold. For starters, I don’t do well with technological change, and once I’ve laboriously learned a system (Windows, for example) and can practically do it in my sleep, learning a new one doesn’t sit well.
Specifically, one of the worst things about the Mac is the font. The default one is too tiny, and I have yet to find a way (or get a support person) to tell me how to permanently enlarge it in a manner that works for me. I’ve tried about seven different methods, and they all have tremendous flaws. I will not bore you with the details, but trust me: each attempt to change it has been worse than the previous one, and caused new problems.
Then there is the writing program that comes with the Mac, which is nothing like Word. I’m sure it could be tweaked and customized so it would work well, or one could buy another one, but why isn’t it user-friendly from the start?
And speaking of start, don’t get me started on the photos. No photo card slot ; another gizmo to buy. And everyone I know with a Mac says “Oh, of course you have to get some other photo software; the one that comes with the Mac isn’t adequate.” Well, why not? I thought this thing was supposed to be designed by geniuses.
And the keyboard. Ah, the keyboard! The keys are almost level and nearly flat, instead of the moderately raised, slightly cupped ones I’m used to on my lowly, much-maligned, geriatric (three and a half years old!) Gateway. Since I have arm/hand issues, key comfort is paramount, and although the ones on the Mac look sleek and streamlined, the ergonomics don’t work well for me.
Connectivity? Last night, apropos of nothing special, my Mac disconnected itself from my wifi when I was in the middle of a complex (and unsaved) operation, and refused to recognize the perfectly good password that had been programmed into it so long ago. And no, it wasn’t the wifi itself that was at fault—my other, newly-dysfunctional and malware-infected laptop managed to connect quite nicely when I tested it out at the same time. The Mac came back eventually, decided the old password would do after all, and re-connected. But why had it happened in the first place?
There’s more, but I suspect you’ve probably heard enough. All you Mac lovers out there, no doubt you’ll give me a tongue-lashing and tell me just where I’ve erred.
Post-election musings
It was a good night for the Republicans, a bad night for Obama and liberal Democrats. Especially in New Jersey.
Obama will never admit it. But will he take it to heart? I doubt it. It will be full steam ahead on the agenda, and the same for Pelosi (and to a lesser extent Reid), who will attempt to twist the resistant Blue Dog arms (or is it legs?) ever more forcibly. Should be interesting.
If same sex marriage can’t win in places like California and now Maine, then its day hasn’t quite come. However, I do think that, with the next generation coming up, it’s just a matter of time.
If Republicans want to win, they should nominate Republicans in the first place, not RINOs who will be challenged by Conservatives and end up splitting the vote.
A lot can happen between now and 2010.
Election 2009
[NOTE: I’ll be adding comments as the night goes on.]
So far McDonnell is projected the winner by a longshot in Virginia. New Jersey is unknown, and New York 23 likewise.
Random observations:
(1) I was watching CNN for a while and saw James Carville and Mary Matlin, and marveled once again that this particular pair is still married. Love, ain’t it wonderful?
(2) On Fox, there was a report that one of Obama’s aides (can’t remember who—Axelrod? Emanuel?) said the President won’t be watching the election returns tonight, he’ll be looking at the basketball game. Besides being extremely difficult to believe, it strikes me that at this point such a statement doesn’t convey cool confidence, it displays either arrogance or almost pathological disinterest.
Let me repeat: I don’t really think it’s the truth. But does Obama really want to conjure up the idea that he’s either (a) lying (b) smug (c) asleep at the wheel; or (d) some combination of a-c?
(3) If Hoffman ends up beating Owens, you’d have to say that Sarah Palin has shown more political savvy and leadership than many people give her credit for. Wasn’t she the first big Repubican name to make the leap and endorse him?
(4) And speaking of political savvy, if the results tonight continue to trend in a strong Republican direction, I guess it wasn’t such a smart move to call the town hall attendees and the Tea Party participants crazy haters.
(5) Wow. Christie wins in New Jersey. That’s seismic.
(6) “Change” can cut both ways. Exit polls indicate that the desire for change was a big motivator in the New Jersey results. And young people can be fickle. They stayed home in New Jersey.
(7) Christie’s victory speech sounds sincere. Of course, I’m predisposed to like him. It will be very interesting to see if he can actually improve things in New Jersey. If so, it certainly would be a great advertisement for a more fiscally conservative approach to crises. Take back New Jersey!
(8) Good one!
(9) Gay marriage in Maine is in a dead heat.
(10) Owens won; not a good thing. Republicans need to nominate good candidates in the first place so this sort of party-splitting doesn’t happen in the future.
Help neo-neocon! Buy Amazon!
Now that I’ve become a rapacious capitalist self-promoter, I want to point out that I’ve added an Amazon button to the right sidebar, underneath the PayPal button. Call that area the neo-neocon mini-mall.
This means that, whenever you want to go to Amazon to order something, if you come here and click on that button instead, you pay exactly what you would have paid anyway but I get a tiny percentage (4%, to be exact) of whatever you order.
Sounds like a win-win proposition to me. And even better, Christmas and Chanuka are almost breathing down our necks.
I plan to update the Amazon button in the not-too distant future with more compelling graphics, adding some book recommendations as well. But for the moment I went for simplicity.
[NOTE: Although some people have reported ordering items from Amazon through my blog (thanks!), nothing’s showing up on the account yet. Perhaps there’s a time lag, or perhaps there’s a glitch. I’ll try to reach them and report back.]
[ADDENDUM: I got some clarification from Amazon. Purchases made through the blog don’t show up on my Amazon account till the next day. Also, if the items were previously in your cart and you purchase them through the click-through on my blog, it doesn’t count as a purchase made through me. Has to be a new item.
Hope that helps. I’ll add any further information I can find.]
[ADDENDUM II: So far no transactions have gone through. I expect some to show up by Wednesday. If nothing shows up by Thursday, I’ll give them another call and let you know what’s what.]
Off-year elections
It may be an off year, but it’s a potentially exciting one. I plan to tune in tonight and write something—hope the news is good. Here’s a thread where you can discuss things till then.
The morning after: Iowa regrets its Obama decision
Too little, too late, many Independent and Republican voters who voted for Obama have woken up with a splitting headache:
Pauline McAreavy voted for President Obama. From the moment she first saw him two years ago, she was smitten by his speeches and sold on his promise of change. She switched parties to support him in the Iowa caucuses, donated money and opened her home to a pair of young campaign workers…
“I’m afraid I wasn’t realistic,” Ms. McAreavy, 76, a retired school nurse, said on a recent morning on the deck of her home here in east-central Iowa.
“I really thought there would be immediate change,” she said. “Sometimes the Republicans are just as bad as Democrats. But it’s politics as usual, and that’s what I voted against.”
I hate to insult a senior citizen, but how did Ms. McAreavy ever manage to reach the ripe old age of seventy-six while remaining naive enough to believe that Obama could have actually overhauled “politics as usual,” even if he’d wanted to?
Not too realistic—she’s got that right. But here’s the money quote:
“All my Republican friends ”” and independents ”” are sitting back saying, ”˜Oh, what did we do?” Ms. McAreavy said.
I can answer that question: you fell in love with a con artist. What’s more, you and other Americans were so angry at the Republicans in Congress that you threw them out and elected the only thing that’s worse: an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress with a virtually filibuster-proof majority and a couple of leaders who are from the Left wing of the party.
Good going, folks. But:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Obama’s souffle words in Berlin go pouf!
Here’s a wonderful piece by Rich Lowry about Obama’s failure to visit Berlin for the anniversary of the fall of Communism. In it he calls the snub “the most telling nonevent of the Obama Presidency.”
The excuse Obama has given—that he’s too busy—is a transparent absurdity (maybe that’s what Obama meant by “transparency?”). Somehow he’s got plenty of time to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. First things first, right?
As Lowry puts it:
John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” On the 20th anniversary of the last century’s most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, “Ich bin besché¤ftigt” – i.e., I’m busy. It doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?
No, not quite. And whatever ring it does have (narcissim comes to mind, for starters), it’s not the ring of freedom.
Here’s more from Lowry:
Obama famously made a speech in Berlin during last year’s campaign, but at an event devoted to celebrating himself as the apotheosis of world hopefulness. He said of 1989, “a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”
The line was typical Obama verbal soufflé, soaring but vulnerable to collapse upon the slightest jostling from logic or historical fact. The wall came down only after the free world resolutely stood against the Communist bloc. Rather than a warm-and-fuzzy exercise in global understanding, the Cold War was another iteration of the 20th century’s long war between totalitarianism and Western liberalism. The West prevailed on the back of American strength.
But Obama doesn’t think in such antiquated, triumphalist terms. Given to apologizing for his nation abroad, he resolutely downplays American leadership.
Read the whole thing.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s another take on Obama’s foreign policy that’s well worth reading.]
Republican rebirth in New England?
New England used to be fairly solidly Republican, with the exception of Massachusetts, and even Massachusetts retained a periodic tendency to vote for Republican governors. But the New England brand of Republican was always a combination of fiscal conservative and social—well, if not liberal exactly, then at least moderate. The New England strain was really more libertarian than traditionally conservative; rugged individualism was at its core.
Back in 2006, when the Democrats were starting the ascendance that continued with their 2008 Congressional landslide, the NY Times described the fade of New England Republicans, calling them an endangered species. But politics is a fickle thing, and trends can reverse themselves, as today’s Boston Globe demonstrates by headlining the tentative return of the rock-ribbed New England Republican. And if you read the piece, you’ll see that New England may be poised for a series of New York District 23-type confrontations between the conservative and moderate wings of the Party.
My guess is that this is a portent of things to come, and not just in New England. But a year can be an awfully long time in politics.
Decoding Pelosi’s health care reform bill
The Wall Street Journal tackles the 1990-page wonder, and comes up with this.
Summary:
Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.
Read it and weep, if you’re not already doing so.